Today’s Reading List – November 12, 2007
And The Rumor Mill Went Wild!……
Last Friday, the LATimes ran a story about the supposed lovefest between Evangelicals and Huckabee to be followed by The Prowler and Politico, and ever so slowly by the NYTimes poli-blog, with the rumor that James Dobson was going to endorse Mike Huckabee. Closely on their heels came Hotline with not one, but two actual named sources denying the rumor.
Hugh Hewitt has done some very pertinent analysis of all this. But there are a couple of salient points that I would like to add. The first point is I am continually amazed that the press lets itself get duped this way. From my perspective it is clear what happened. The "unnamed source close to Dobson" that floated this little bugger wanted to gin up a bit of a wave to influence Dobson in that direction. See, if you have an unnamed source, you just have to smell a rat, you have to ask yourself why.
But then maybe the press was not duped, maybe there were willing accomplices. Which brings me to my second comment. The press wants a huge religious political battle of some sort. A Dobson v Robertson v Weyrich/Sekulow/DeMoss/Bob Jones show down would be in their minds the stories of political legend. Some want that just because it would be a good story; some want it because they think it would effectively neutralize the religious right in politics (they forget we will pull together for the general election), and some want it because such a show down has the potential to hugely weaken the Republican party.
But the real point is that there is a lot more to lose here than there is to gain for Republicans and especially for religiously motivated Republicans. Whatever an Evangelical's individual choice may be in all of this is almost secondary right now. How we exercise that choice and conduct the debate is what really matters. If we blow this, we can lose it all.
But the Christian Coalition's choice to sit out the primary is the wrong one. The decision is probably motivated by that group's weakness more than anything else, but it is no way to rebuild. Consider this book review out of the NYTimes about the increasingly "extreme" nature of politics. Interestingly, religion is not overtly mentioned, but consider this passage:
But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch.
"Dogmatism" and "zealotry" are religious code words and imply intolerance, and petulance. The forces of the left and the press are aligned against religious activism in politics. The key to maintaining our power is not to break down into silly feuds, genuine sincere political difference, but not silly label arguments. The key is also to conduct ourselves with humility and civility. Simply put, we have to prove them wrong.
Speaking of Rumors…
The Mormon/JFK speech talk has run rampant again. This time Romney is saying he was advised against it. This AP story contains what is to my non-Mormon eye one of the funniest bits I have seen in the press yet:
"Governor Romney is a bishop and former state president," said Miriam Case, a voter from Campton, N.H. "He is a man of integrity."
Romney interrupted: "You must be a Mormon. She's got the Mormon lingo here."
Well, kinda, it's "staKe" president, not "staTe." Now given Romney's interruption, I am going to guess it is the press guy that got it wrong and not the person quoted, or Romney himself. Now, this is pretty basic stuff when it comes to knowing how the CJCLDS is organized. Tell me again how the press is qualified to cover this stuff.
Anyway, this set off a whole other round of discussion
Well, presuming the Romney campaign reads this blog from time-to-time, and reliable rumor has it they do, then I guess Lowell and I can loosely classify ourselves as some of the "advisers" that have urged the Governor against this speech, and all I can say is that the flurry of discussion that comes in the wake of any mention proves my point about same precisely.
The very idea of a speech, regardless of content, has taken on a life of its own that has grown to very silly proportions. All this, at this point, is nothing more than the press' very unoriginal thinking on the JFK parallels. See, the JFK speech was news and that is what they want. A Mormon speech would be news too, but of an entirely different type. In our hyper-commented, over-analyzed age, such a speech would be torn to shreds before it was given.
I want you to imagine seminary professors from around the nation rushed in limos to studios to comment on the pre-released text, and live as the speech is delivered. I want you to imagine guys that are pathologically incapable of speaking in words less than ten syllables dissecting the difference between Mormon views of the atonement and Calvin's, or Augustine's, or Arminius, or N.T. Wright. And all that to be followed by some breathless reporter commenting, "So Mormons are different that regular Christians."
There are no good take-aways from that.
Late update from Lowell: Because I stayed up far too late Sunday night, I saw this piece by Jay Cost, in which the author ruminates, and ruminates, and ruminates about the idea of The Speech; takes the art of navel-gazing to a new high (er, low?); and ends up concluding that Romney is just too candid about campaign strategy.
I'm not kidding.
Breathless BS…
CNN got its undies all in a bundle because they got a tape of private event in which Romney pitched to conservative Christians. (There is a video piece too) What they got was bupkiss. There is nothing in there that hasn't been heard and said in public numerous times. It was a private gathering because the intimacy of such a setting helps build a relationship between the candidate and the audience. They acted like it was going to be a huge secret ceremony of some sort where in creedal and Mormons got together and practiced their varying human sacrifices, which resulted in a pitched religious battle with spears and lightening bolts.
Give me a break!
Speaking of needing a break…
How about John McCain? You hate to beat on a guy for something his mother said, but my goodness you'd think they would have had a leash of some sort involved. Marc Ambinder described McCain's day as bizarre – that's an understatement. Bottom line is this, McCain's mother is an ignorant, bigoted wretch and McCain should have kept her in her cage. I guess he has forgotten the first rule of holes.
But It Gets Worse…
Robert Redford makes McCain's mama look sane. Professor Bainbridge tells the story:
From the Boston Herald:
Hollywood heavy Robert Redford may be from Utah, but that doesn’t mean he’s supporting his neighbor Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House!
“Forget it. Now that’s a faceless, methodic jerk,” the silver-screen legend told the Track, shaking his head. “Remember, he’s from the missionary thought, and when you’re a missionary, nothing fazes you.”
From the Washington Times:
Mr. Redford may be staying out of the presidential race, but he makes some highly provocative comments about Republican Mitt Romney, based on his many years among the Mormons of Utah.
“They are very adept at not being fazed and speaking fluently and gracefully. Why? Because every single male who’s a Mormon goes on a mission for two years when they’re 19 or 20,” he says. “They learn how to deflect blows and stay on message. No wonder Utah is the place that all these Republican senators go. It’s perfect. So when you see Mitt Romney, he’s already been practicing how to deflect blows and stay on message. But it’s plastic.”
If Redford had said anything remotely that bigoted about a candidate who was, say, Jewish, gay, or black, Hollywood would be screaming for his head. But when you’re a liberal icon, I guess it’s okay to be a bigot, as long as you chose the right targets.
Lowell: A note about Redford: He's lived in Utah for a long, long time, but he's not part of the Mormon culture and has made it his business to stay as far from the culture as possible. Instead, he has been the liberal celebrity recluse of the Wasatch Mountain range for about 40 years. It looks like the experience has left him embittered.
OK, bottom line is that these statements are so ignorant and bigoted, and Redford is so inconsequential in actual, real politics that this does not require refutation. The real criminal here is the press for passing it on like, a) it matters, and b) it is not the vile disgusting rantings of someone that in other circumstances would be wearing a white hood.
In general…
Mike Gallagher says there is no "Mormon Factor" but Austin Hill thinks it is unavoidable. The answer, of course, is somewhere in the middle. It is a factor to some, but it cannot be overcome with a bludgeon; actual finesse is required – something the Governor has been doing quite well.
Some interesting analysis, not sure I like the tone.
South Carolina is a great deal more complex than what the redneck stereotype would have you believe. As a son of the south, Mississippi in my case, all I can say is, "No, Duh!"
There is no news like what has become old news – at least in the US.
Finally…
The Wall Street Journal goes deep with Romney. One passage I think deserves special comment:
Having established his biography, he turns without pause to the question, which he asks himself, "Why am I running for president?"
The answer to this question is as abstract as his overture was personal. The "I" in the question seems to disappear: "I think what America faces now are extraordinary challenges, which, if we deal with appropriately, will allow us to remain the world's military and economic superpower for an indefinite period of time."
Now, look at that in light of something Romney's wife said earlier last week in an interview with Hugh Hewitt:
Yeah, you know, I certainly have, and it may not be what you think, Hugh. It’s…in another way, it’s having seen Mitt’s father after he lost, which is he was completely non-plussed by it. And I think if you remember, that if you just keep that in mind, too, which is we’re doing this to make a difference, we’re doing this because we’re stepping forward, we’re not doing this because it’s the be-all and end-all of our lives. We’re doing it because we believe America needs a leader like Mitt. And if not, our lives go on and everything is fine. So I think that perspective, I was with George in the car when he was listening to McNamara talk about how he had lied to the American people, and that was in 1994. And I was stunned by his response. I turned to him and I said oh, my gosh, you could have been president of the United States. He looked at me and he said Ann, I never look back. And he was such an amazing person. And I think I did obviously learn so much from him, which is it wasn’t about him. He was, again, stepping forward. And I just admired him so much.
What we see demonstrated here is an attitude of service. Something increasingly rare in this day and age – and perhaps the deepest Christian value. There is a lot of food for thought there, and I will leave you to think it.
Lowell: All I will add here is that I have had the privilege of spending some time with the Romneys and some of their sons, and they are not kidding when they talk about the reasons they are running. Also, as a Mormon, I can tell you that it is very natural for us to hear one another talk this way. Of course, not everyone walks the talk, but that's another story. Just a report from a life-long Mormon about what feels natural to me. Apparently the Wall Street Journal editorial writer feels the same way:
While some have questioned Mr. Romney's authenticity, the immediate impression he gives is that he speaks straight from the heart. Especially where data are concerned. "I used to call it 'wallowing in the data,'" Mr. Romney continues. "Let me see the data. I want to see the client's data, the competitors' data. I want to see all the data."
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coltakashi on 12 Nov 2007 at 6:11 pm #
As for Mr. Redford: My recollection is that his first wife was LDS, but they parted some years ago. That would imply that at some point he may have been induced to sit down with the LDS missionaries to talk about their message. Since he did not join the Church, he clearly rejected the message the missionaries offered. So his comments criticize their persistence and focus and avoid explaining why he didn’t respond to the spiritual questions they certainly asked him.
Redford’s hostility to Mormons in general is a little off-putting. After all, he has had historically some good relations with Mormon Democrats like former Salt Lake City mayor Ted Wilson, who became director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. He surely has Mormon employees at Sundance Resort and in his catalogue operation. And Mormons have participated in the Sundance Film Festival and various workshops sponsored by the Sundance Institute from its beginnings (e.g. Napolean Dynamite).
The criticism of the single-minded thrust of Mormon missionaries is also a criticism that might be made about soldiers, who do not get distracted from their assigned objective. I have a feeling that Mr. Redford would feel differently if the single-mindedness was being put into service on behalf of one of his liberal political causes. After all, that’s what his movie “All the President’s Men” glorified in Woodward and Bernstein. Redford’s statement that missionaries are “plastic” is a value judgment that denies their sincerity, that they believe in what they are saying. Coming from a person who is a professional actor, whose job is to write, produce, direct and perform fiction (AKA lies), a certain hypocrisy is showing.
The reason that Redford and many other people involved in the entertainment industry find a natural home in the Democratic Party, despite their incredible wealth, has, I suspect, something to do with the fact that Democratic Party policies are based on making grand gestures to demonstrate sincere concern and sympathy, not to actually solve problems. When the programs do not produce results, the Democratic Party response is “You can;t cut the program, don’t you care about the problem?” So failure of the program means that more money must be spent on the gesture, and any success means that more money must be spent on the gesture.
One of the grand gestures that Redford has been deeply involved with is environmentalist issues, including of course global warming, having hosted a conference of mayors on that issue with left wing Salt Lake mayor Rocky Anderson. Global warming is the ideal Democratic grand gesture, because by definition it is almost impossible to tell whether any program will make any difference in the problem, because the already accumulated greenhouse gases are enough, allegedly, to ensure continued global warming even if we all stopped breathing, driving, eating, and lighting and warming our homes. We won’t know if any Democratic Party program is helping for another 50 years. The Democrats have no idea what the input needs to be for any particular output of results. They are not counting on science, but on sincerity to prove to Nature that they are worthy of being saved from disaster. It has all the logic of the pre-Christian Hawaiians throwing virgins into the volcanoes to appease Pele, the fire goddess.